


new money, suit and tie (i can read you like a magazine)

by notcaycepollard



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Pining, Unresolved Sexual Tension, jewel thief, tiny demanding perfect Gaby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-07 07:38:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6795157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/pseuds/notcaycepollard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere along the line, Solo starts showering her with jewels.</p><p>They're all exquisite, and extravagant, and very clearly stolen. Every mission, something new shows up; they work among the obscenely rich almost as a matter of course, and she suspects Solo's breaking their safes just to pass the time. She speculates, a little, what proportion of these gifts are newly stolen, and what's been hidden for years, waiting for the right time to surface. The Americans had recovered the art, the antiquities, but apparently they haven't got to everything. Gaby thinks, probably, they've barely scratched the surface of what Solo might have stolen all these years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	new money, suit and tie (i can read you like a magazine)

Somewhere along the line, Solo starts showering her with jewels.

They're all exquisite, and extravagant, and very clearly stolen. Gaby recognises some of them, even. A Van Cleef & Arpels diamond cuff taken in a brazen heist in Amsterdam, five years ago. An enormous Cartier necklace, studded with Burmese rubies and diamonds as big as Gaby's thumb, that she suspects was made for Indian royalty and missing since Partition. Other pieces are less high-profile but no less valuable. Solo is light-fingered and amoral and pathologically attracted to beauty, and it makes him the perfect jewel thief. She wonders if their masters even know about all the treasure he's secreted away.

Every mission, something new shows up; they work among the obscenely rich almost as a matter of course, and she suspects Solo's breaking their safes just to pass the time. She speculates, a little, what proportion of these gifts are newly stolen, and what's been hidden for years, waiting for the right time to surface. The Americans had recovered the art, the antiquities, but apparently they haven't got to everything. Gaby thinks, probably, they've barely scratched the surface of what Solo might have stolen all these years.

He favors diamonds the most, but there are others. Jade so pale it's translucent, in Hong Kong. A bracelet so delicately floral Gaby feels she's wearing cherry blossoms twined wreath-like around her wrist, set with brilliants and cabochon opals, marquise-cut pink sapphires and tourmalines. Emeralds in platinum, Chaumet earrings from their Art Deco period and so heavy Gaby's ears ache. Pearls glossy with antique lustre, which she wears to bed and nowhere else. Watches the way Illya drags his fingers along the strand as if he'd like to tug and snap and send them scattering.

She wears them inconsequentially, as if they mean nothing. They're terribly heavy, most of them, intolerable for more than a few hours at a time, and she misses the simplicity and modernity of lucite and resin. If nothing else, she doesn't worry she's going to lose thirty million dollars when she's wearing plastic. But Solo keeps giving, and Gaby won't give him the satisfaction of ignoring them. So she wears them.

Illya doesn't mention them at all, until he does, and then it's in a tone that might mean anything or nothing. 

"Not that necklace," he says coolly, as she's dressing one morning. "It doesn't work with the neckline. Try the sapphire chandeliers, or wear the Dior."

He's right, of course. The teardrop sapphires are perfect. Gaby watches in the mirror as he buttons his shirt, looks at the set of his mouth, and when Solo enters the room, Illya's face gives away nothing at all. Solo smiles, very easily, when he sees what she's wearing, and his face says he'd steal Gaby if he could, keep her hidden away in his vault next to all the diamonds he hasn't given her yet, but he'll settle for Illya in the meantime.

 

She knows Solo and Illya are fucking, and it bothers her less than she expects. Bothers her not at all, in fact. She and Solo send Illya back and forth between them, skin hot and marked with Gaby's teeth, Solo's nails. Illya says nothing, just looks at her very carefully, touches her as if he's not entirely sure he's allowed to. Solo says nothing either, but every time he gives her something new, he absconds with Illya afterward, as if he can, as if it's an _arrangement_. Gaby just bites harder, and waits.

The next time she sees Waverly, she wears the emerald earrings, provocative, and he looks at them narrowly but says nothing. 

"Do you want to sleep with me?" she asks, blunt, as he's pouring the second cup of tea, and he clears his throat, gives her a startled look as he touches his fingers to the knot of his tie. 

"Wrong type entirely, I'm afraid," he tells her, and Gaby nods, sips her tea. 

"Solo, then," she says. "He'd be interested, I'm sure. Hold him down and slap his perfect face a little and he'd beg for it on his knees." Waverly clears his throat again but says nothing, and it's then that Solo and Illya reappear from where they've been scoping the grounds or fighting or fucking or all three. Illya's face is red, and Solo's hair is rumpled, and Gaby gives Waverly a knowing glance, tilts her head.

"You see," she says, meaningfully, and watches him look interested for just a fraction of a moment. 

"No," he murmurs, so easily they might be discussing the weather, or a mission, "but I take your point," and Gaby smiles. Waverly's good, very good, but he's wondering, now. Gaby should feel guilty, perhaps, for dangling Solo like this, using him to prove a point, but the play of it is satisfying. She turns her face up to the sun, catches the sparkle of her jewelry in the corner of her eye, sees Waverly look again at her earrings and back at Solo. She knows Waverly's given up a title for this job, and she knows or at least suspects that the Chaumet, and probably all the Chopard too, it comes from the Brinscote vault. It's rude, perhaps, to wear jewelry stolen from his estate to a briefing on his own grounds, but she was curious, and at least a little casually cruel.

Gaby sets down her cup, stands and pushes in her chair, reaches for Solo to smooth his hair into place. He startles at her touch too, holds himself very still as she runs her fingers through his hair. Illya is watching, and Waverly too, and Gaby lets her fingers barely brush his throat as she straightens his collar, tightens his tie. She doesn't usually touch him like this, doesn't create intimacy between them, but with her body angled toward him and away from Waverly, she lets herself slide in so close she can smell Illya on his skin.

"Am I that untidy?" Solo asks, grins at her all sharp teeth and bright eyes, and Gaby raises her eyebrows, looks up at him.

"Inappropriate," she says under her breath, "save it for the hotel tonight, you can have him if you need him so badly," and Solo startles again, all fine bones like a thoroughbred racehorse. Gaby doesn't know whether he's more shocked by her admonishment or her permission. She thinks, perhaps, that what Solo likes the best is the idea that he's stealing Illya, in these encounters. Illicit, and light-fingered, and enough of an adrenaline rush to keep him on the edge, every time.

 

Gaby is almost, almost used to travelling the way they do, now. This time, they're in Santorini, a villa overlooking the Aegean, and although Gaby expects the mission will end just as badly as it always inevitably does, for the moment she has clean salt air in her lungs and sunlight on her skin and a glass of Vinsanto in her hand. It could be worse.

"Where is Illya?" she asks, without turning around, when Solo steps out onto the balcony.

"Investigating," Solo says, and takes her wine, slides a flat flocked-velvet box under her fingers. When she opens it it's Bvlgari, a diamond and aquamarine bracelet that glitters cold as ice in the whiteness all around them. The aquamarines are translucently, luminously blue. Blue as the sea, almost as blue as Solo's eyes, and just as impossibly clear.

She lets the bracelet slide through her fingers, casual, as if she's dropping it on her vanity table. Solo's hands are very quick; he snatches it out of the air before it can reach the waves below, and he frowns down at it.

"You don't like it," he says, "you don't like _these_ , the diamonds, any of it," and Gaby shrugs before she sighs.

"They're meaningless," she tells him. "What good do they do me, Solo?"

"Perhaps I'm trying to seduce you," Solo suggests, voice as modulated as ever. He might be serious, he might be joking; it's impossible to tell the difference. Solo skates along that edge, safety in it, and Gaby is tired of it. Looking up at him, she wonders if his cheekbones might actually be sharp enough to cut diamonds. It seems possible, in this starkly white sunlight. She has the urge to press her fingers to the divot in his chin, and refrains.

"You didn't shower Illya with priceless diamonds," she points out, and Solo smiles, very deliberate.

" _Illya_ ," he says, "wouldn't wear diamonds like you wear diamonds. And he'd have seen it all as conspicuous Western luxury." Gaby raises an eyebrow, acknowledging the point, and Solo's smile gets wider, less precise. "Besides," he adds. "I already had something he wanted."

"Hmm?"

"His father's watch," Solo says. "More priceless than diamonds." He looks down at her hand, then, and touches the pearl ring she still wears, drags his fingers over it almost covetously. "You don't wear my jewellery like it means anything, Gaby. Why wear this?"

"A reminder," Gaby says, and twists the ring around her finger.

"Of your brief and whirlwind engagement?"

"That we're  _spies_ ," Gaby returns, a little frustrated by Solo's deliberate opacity. "You know it's a microphone, inside. It's not about the jewellery at all. We're spies, Solo, and whoever heard of spies falling in love?"

"Mata Hari?" Solo suggests, and Gaby bites at her lip.

"Yes," she agrees, her voice sharp, "that ended well for her, as I recall." Solo doesn't say anything, just drinks the wine he's stolen, and Gaby wishes she had sunglasses to shield her face from how he's watching her. He's too bright, in this light, and she can't look at him without narrowing her eyes. "Thank you for the bracelet," she says after another minute of silence. Takes her wine back, hands the bracelet to him, angles her arm so he can fasten it around her wrist. She drinks as he does so, watches him over the rim of the glass. He wraps his fingers around her wrist when he's done, his thumb pressing against her pulse.

"I would give you anything," he says, too quiet and too serious for once, and it makes Gaby's breath catch. "Just tell me."

She could ask for something impossible. _Break into the Tower of London. Bring me St Edward's crown, the Koh-i-Noor. Steal me the Hope Diamond, and we'll break its curse._ She could demand Illya to herself, promises Solo will struggle to keep, could make him go on his knees. It's all there in his eyes, and he can probably read her thinking about what to demand, and he's just  _waiting_ , as if Gaby is something he wants this much.

"Something worthless," she decides on a whim. "Something you paid for. Something you haven't stolen," and then Illya is back, and the moment breaks. Illya's looking between the two of them, his face not quite jealous but assessing, and Gaby decides, reckless, that this time she is going to steal him, that Solo can wait, that even in a villa with rooms too close together she is going to ride Illya into the smooth white linen of her bed and let Solo hear the noises she makes.

She keeps the bracelet on while she does it. Thinks of Solo's fingers hot around her wrist. Sinks her teeth hard into Illya's throat, almost but not quite breaking the skin, and feels him shake, his hands tremble. When he comes, he's loud enough she knows Solo will have heard, and the thought of it tips her right over the edge.

 

Gaby thinks Solo will change his mind, or lose interest, or tumble back from his uncharacteristic gravity into the kind of deliberately empty flirtation she expects. He doesn't. 

"You know," she says a week later, "I think Solo is trying to seduce me."

"Yes," Illya agrees, and passes her the Piaget diamond lariat. She wrinkles her nose.

"That's hideous," she complains, and Illya rolls his eyes.

"You have no taste, little chop shop," he tells her. Fastens the necklace around her neck, arranges it into place. "Luckily, Solo does. For jewels, at least."

"I think he's serious," Gaby says, returning to the topic at hand, and Illya makes an impatient noise in the back of his throat.

"If he were not," he says, choosing every word carefully, "he would not go far with either of us." Gaby forgets herself and stares at him, and Illya stares back, all the planes of his face so impenetrably Russian Gaby thinks he should be a Soviet propaganda model.

"You're serious," she says, and catches the flicker in his eyes, the twist of his mouth.

"I love you," he says, unembarrassed, "and Solo is terribly irritating, but it is not so terrible to work with him. You could do worse. _We_ could do worse. What did he promise you?"

"Anything," Gaby says, breathless, and too bewildered to know how it is that Illya knows Solo promised at all. "He offered me anything."

"Then," Illya murmurs, and stoops down to kiss her, his lips light on her mouth, "he  _is_ serious, and I hope you asked for something difficult."

She did, she thinks. Solo has never paid for anything in his life. Nothing he'd consider worth giving, at least.

 

Weeks, months go by, and no more stolen jewels appear. Perhaps Solo has actually taken her to heart, Gaby thinks. He still watches her, looks occasionally as if he's about to speak. He never does, but his fingers are hot whenever he brushes her skin.

"I hate California," he tells her eventually, quiet and exasperated, and Gaby touches his elbow. They're on mission, of course, back in the United States for once, and Solo is even more pulled together than usual, all sharp bones, sharp eyes, sharp lines. His suit is perfect. He looks like a Hollywood film star, and Gaby should hate it, but she looks again, sees him smooth back hair that's already impeccable, and it's a tell she hasn't seen before. 

"I too hate California," Illya says over comms, and Gaby laughs a little.

"Yes, Illya, but you hate everything," she points out, and hears the huff that means Illya's conceding the point. "Why could you possibly hate California?" she asks Solo, frowns up at him. "It's your null point. You could not be anywhere more fitting."

"You think this is where I belong," Solo says, as if he doesn't believe her. "I grew up in  _Wisconsin_."

"And you grew up wanting to be  _here_ ," Gaby guesses. "And then you came here, and you felt parochial, clumsy. Nowhere near as smooth as you wished to be. Not the character you imagined yourself." Solo blinks, tightens his jaw, and Gaby wants to tell him.  _This is you giving away your secrets, Solo._ She suddenly feels very tender, understanding him all in a flash, and it's like a gift she's been waiting and waiting for. "You paid for it," Gaby continues, leans on the railing of the pier and gazes out across the ocean. Without looking, she can tell Solo is watching her, very still, waiting for her to say more. "You bought everything you wanted. You think you've stolen it, but this-" she waves a hand, encompassing his suit and his jaw and his eyes, "that callow child from Wisconsin bought it all."

"Perhaps," Solo allows, and Gaby glances back at him, lets him catch her in the blue of his eyes. Santa Monica, its noise, its popcorn and burnt sugar and salt air, it all fades for just a moment, and Gaby wonders if he is finally about to kiss her.

He doesn't. He smiles, the Hollywood smile he must have practised so many times it's almost natural, and Gaby sees that it never meets his eyes.

She eats candyfloss, while they're waiting for a target that's not going to appear. Not because she wants it, particularly, but because it's there, and Gaby needs something to do with her mouth that isn't _putting her mouth on Solo's_ , kissing off his glossy facade. The spun sugar dissolves gritty-sweet with every bite, and she catches Solo looking half a dozen times.

"You don't want any?" she asks, and he shakes his head, watches again as she pulls off fine-spun strands, twirls them around her fingers. "Sure?"

"What I  _want_ ," Solo says, and then pauses, glances sideways at a row of cheap vending machines and penny arcade games a few paces away. "Give me just one moment," he says, smooth and easy, and Gaby wonders if he's going to buy a fortune for a penny, a fistful of candy, a cone of salted peanuts. He pulls out a dime, looks thoughtfully at the gumball machines. Gaby eats candyfloss, and waits.

"Something worthless," Solo says, suddenly very close to her, and he's out of breath. "Something I paid for." And he's taking her hand, sliding a brass ring onto her sugar-sticky finger. It is very cheap, and very ugly, and it doesn't glitter at all.

"It's perfect," Gaby tells him, and hauls him into a kiss that will leave him messy, all his sharp edges softened and masks stripped away.

 

"You know," Waverly says during their next debrief, "I've been considering your suggestion, Miss Teller."

"Oh," Gaby says, carefully not tightening her fingers on the delicate porcelain of her cup, "I'm afraid that's no longer an option."

"No?" Waverly asks, and Gaby shakes her head, meets his gaze, bares her teeth in something that's almost, but not quite, a smile.  _Mine_ , she thinks, _Solo is_ _mine, you cannot have him_ , and Waverly smiles as if he knows exactly what she's thinking.

"Pity," he says lightly, and throws his napkin down on the table. "You may as well keep the earrings anyway. They look better on you than in the vault."

"They were a gift," Gaby tells him, "you could not take them from me if you tried," and Waverly just raises an eyebrow, his eyes flint-grey in the cold London sunlight.

"We understand each other perfectly, then," he says, and stands to go. Gaby turns her head, watches him leave, and the light glints off her earrings, flares a halo of tiny lights in the periphery of her vision. They're priceless like the cheap rings on her fingers aren't, and they matter nothing to Gaby compared to all the gifts that have been stolen for her.


End file.
